Thanks for the information, @reckful. It's so interesting that I'm surprised no one's responded, and I don't have time other than to say Keirsey's temperaments seem to work better with regard to typing people if they're separated from MBTI and other 4-temperament systems. His book "Personology" seems to be his final attempt to separate his ideas from MBTI. I do have a somewhat easier time distinguishing between SJ and SP than SF and ST when typing in real life.

Judith Grutter's webinars, found under CPP, Inc. on YouTube, cover the ST, SF, NF, NT method of typing.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cpp+inc+judith+grutter

 

That is all fascinating-- I was always convinced by Keirseys descriptions, but your study was pretty convincing too. Definitely food for thought. And I agree that there are probably several equally valid ways they can be divided up.
Also I really agree with you on the fact that INs are a really important group. They are definitely my kindred spirits. ENFs can be kind of fake and more dogmatic than critical. While INs, even INFPs seem in general more critcal and analytical. Maybe having a dominant Fe or Ne just necessitates that you build off the will of others, while Fi or Ni automatically makes you more questioning, because you're thinking independently. Wow thank you that is really interesting.

 

Thought it would be interesting, following on from this, to start a thread about which pair of preferences people on the forum felt were their "kindred spirits" - so that thread has been started.

I'd be interested, in general, if it transpired that one particular set of preferences held greater meaning or value than others; it seems to me that it is going to be vary between individuals, that one ABCD finds BCs to be most alike to him, whilst another ABCD finds ADs are more like her. In that regard, it's interesting to observe that - from the data presented - ST/SF is a better job predictor than SJ/SP; I wonder whether ST/SF proves a better predictor in other ways or whether it's simply more useful in predicting occupational trends...

 

I think it depends on what you are trying to say and what you want to achieve by grouping them. For example, IN, according to you, are nerds, introspective, scholarly people who enjoy learning for the sake of learning. Then NFs are said to be the idealists and empathetic, people focus, etc.

I imagine an INFP would feel related to all the Is, the Ns, the Fs, and the Ps in various degree with different reasons.

 

I agree — which is why, as I said, I think "it's probably a mistake to put too much emphasis on any particular grouping of the 16 types," and "I assume there are probably noteworthy and insightful things to be said about each of the possible two-letter combinations."

 

The weird thing about Keirsey temperaments is, why is it not SJ/SP/NJ/NP or ST/SF/NT/NF.
Maybe because intuition is timeless, and S has a stronger sense of time, with Se being about the now and Si being past-focus?

 

From a similar topic:

First, you have to take a step back from a functional analysis and go back to the dichotomy approach. Keirsey based his work on Myers'. Upon looking at the existing function pair groups of SF, ST, NF, and NT, he felt that SJs and SPs were more alike in those respective pairings than SFs and STs.

He compared to other four-type models:

Plato	Artisan	Guardian	Idealist	Rational
Aristotle	Hedonic	Proprietary	Ethical	Dialectical
Galen	Sanguine	Melancholic	Choleric	Phlegmatic
Paracelsus	Changeable	Industrious	Inspired	Curious
Adickes	Innovative	Traditional	Doctrinaire	Skeptical
Spranger	Aesthetic	Economic	Religious	Theoretic
Kretschmer	Hypomanic	Depressive	Hyperesthetic	Anesthetic
Fromm	Exploitative	Hoarding	Receptive	Marketing
Myers	Probing	Scheduling	Friendly	Tough-minded
Keirsey	SP	SJ	NF	NT

And decided that SPs fit in with the other types of the same column, just as SJs fit theirs, and so on.

EDIT: He came up with these groupings by comparing the types as a whole rather than just grouping by common perceiving functions.

Interestingly, the MBTI manual makes mention of all kinds of letter combinations, including Keirsey's. Other than function pairs, they also look at EPs, EJs, IPs, IJs; SPs, SJs, NPs, NJs; TPs, TJs, FPs, FJs; ENs, ESs, INs, ISs; & ETs, EFs, ITs, IFs.

 

I wanted to post the descriptions given by Myers of the ST, SF, NT and NF types, and I was going to start a new thread for them but decided it would make more sense to put them here. She says far less about her groups than Keirsey says about his, but I thought these short descriptions might still be of interest.

Sensing Plus Thinking

The ST (sensing plus thinking) people rely primarily on sensing for purposes of perception and on thinking for purposes of judgment. Thus, their main interest focuses upon facts, because facts can be collected and verified directly by the senses—by seeing, hearing, touching, counting, weighing, measuring. ST people approach their decisions regarding these facts by impersonal analysis, because of their trust in thinking, with its step-by-step logical process of reasoning from cause to effect, from premise to conclusion.
In consequence, their personalities tend to be practical and matter-of-fact, and their best chances of success and satisfaction lie in fields that demand impersonal analysis of concrete facts, such as economics, law, surgery, business, accounting, production, and the handling of machines and materials.

Sensing Plus Feeling

The SF (sensing plus feeling) people, too, rely primarily on sensing for purposes of perception, but they prefer feeling for purposes of judgment. They approach their decisions with personal warmth because their feeling weighs how much things matter to themselves and others.
They are more interested in facts about people than in facts about things and, therefore, they tend to be sociable and friendly. They are most likely to succeed and be satisfied in work where their personal warmth can be applied effectively to the immediate situation, as in pediatrics, nursing, teaching (especially elementary), social work, selling of tangibles, and service-with-a-smile jobs.

Intuition Plus Feeling

The NF (intuition plus feeling) people possess the same personal warmth as SF people because of their shared use of feeling for purposes of judgment, but because the NFs prefer intuition to sensing, they do not center their attention upon the concrete situation. Instead they focus on possibilities, such as new projects (things that haven’t ever happened but might be made to happen) or new truths (things that are not yet known but might be found out). The new project or the new truth is imagined by the unconscious processes and then intuitively perceived as an idea that feels like an inspiration.
The personal warmth and commitment with which the NF people seek and follow up a possibility are impressive. They are both enthusiastic and insightful. Often they have a marked gift of language and can communicate both the possibility they see and the value they attach to it. They are most likely to find success and satisfaction in work that calls for creativity to meet a human need. They may excel in teaching (particularly college and high school), preaching, advertising, selling of intangibles, counseling,, clinical psychology, psychiatry, writing, and most fields of research.

Intuition Plus Thinking

The NT (intuition plus thinking) people also use intuition but team it with thinking. Although they focus on a possibility, they approach it with impersonal analysis. Often they choose a theoretical or executive possibility and subordinate the human element.
NTs tend to be logical and ingenious and are most successful in solving problems in a field of special interest, whether scientific research, electronic computing, mathematics, the more complex aspects of finance, or any sort of development or pioneering in technical areas.

 

I wanted to post the descriptions given by Myers of the ST, SF, NT and NF types...

Thanks for posting those.

Here's a source — h/t @Gnarthontuel — with more descriptive stuff about those foursomes, and about each of the other two-letter combinations.

(They're all on that same linked page. Just keep scrolling.)

It borrows fairly heavily from the 1998 Manual descriptions, and if you look at the references list at the end, it notes that they've also included stuff from Keirsey, and from a couple other official sources.

 

I wish for more sources like that. Some detailed standardized indicators for a types. Not a mess like there is right now (and probably will be forever).
For example i have read that source and soon after new video from one of "MBTI" youtube channel popped up.
They said " X is an INTJ, so she is observer first, so she states her observations but almost never form any opinions".
Than we got this and IJ " The reason that those with the MBTI IJ attitude can appear inflexible and resistant to change has to do with their extraverted auxiliary judging function preference (either Thinking or Feeling). This preference leads the Decisive Introvert to state their conclusions, rather than providing the data for their judgment, which can come off as extra adamant."
This is exact opposite to me. About the same thing...

 

I really like that this topic references actual empirical data about the types to make the argument that SJ/SP is an inferior division to ST/SF. The problem with so much writing about the Grant stack theory is that it takes the theory (which is just one interpretation of Jung) to be correct presumptively, even though there is no actual data backing this up. The result of this is reams of idle speculation proceeding from the assumption that "INTJ = Ni-Te-Fi-Se" with only an article of faith in one person's hypothesis to make it all hang together.

Why someone would want a theory of human personality that lacks evidence to support its truth-value when there are others that are better supported is something that makes little sense to me.

 

Hear, hear, @TB_Wisdom

Sent using Tapatalk

 

?

 

Another thought occurs to me. I’m not sure if this is even a meaningful question, but how, if at all, do the careers chosen by STs and SFs compare with Keirsey’s intelligence types for SJs and SPs? Keirsey would expect SJs to choose logistical careers and SPs to choose tactical careers, but if ST/SF is a more meaningful division for career choice, how does the choice between logistics and tactics tie in to that?

 

@contradictionary a'ight!

My two/three cents: So Keirseys typology is built on the four parameters: (i) How we see the world, and (ii) how we chose to act in the world.

Keirsey argues (Please Understand Me II) that people see the world in two fundamentally different ways: abstract and concrete. Abstract he denotes as iNtuition and concrete he denotes as Sensation. Keirsey argues further that people act in the world in two fundamentally different ways: utilitarian and cooperative way. He argues that both SP and NT are utilitarian, and NF and SJ are cooperative. Hence, the split becomes:

- abstract + cooperative: NF
- abstract + utilitarian: NT
- concrete + cooperative: SJ
- concrete + utilitarian: SP

Also leading to the fact that NT and SJ are opposites, and NF and SP are opposites.

My take on Keirsey: Just like with the MBTI, I think Keirsey can be highly useful if used in the right situation as a tool to help understand people and for communication. Used in the wrong way, it will be horribly wrong and degenerate us as people. I have said it before and I'll say it again: I do not like dividing people into S and N, in my world every child is born as an iNtuitive but made blind ("S") of the massive brainwashing, propaganda and power games that are constantly at play in the world today. Also, we eat the completely wrong food filled with saturated fats and heavy metals, further calcifying our pineal gland (the key to the "third eye" or intuition). Hence, to be iNtuitive today in the west, it requires you to significantly go against the flow of society since the society wants to keep us all Sensors, i.e., never asking the big questions / digging deeper / threatening the hierarchy.

It's very important to note that although Keirsey claims so, his theory is not consistent with the four temperaments or the four humors. The four temperaments (Hippocrates, Galen, Ibn Sina, Ibn Arabi, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Steiner, Alexander Whyte, etc.) is a biotype, an ancient medicinal divide of people into four biological types: The dry/hot short and powerful Choleric, the dry/wet tall and athletic Sanguine, the cold/wet weighty Phlegmatic and the cold/dry tall and bony Melancholic. So in the four temperament world (greco-arabic medicine), each temperament has specific sleeping habits, typical dreams, common diseases, digestion, skin quality and color, etc.